


School Picture: Touched Nerves

by JAStitches



Series: Family Portraits [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Bickering, Family Drama, Old Married Couple, Other, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 13:51:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10466508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JAStitches/pseuds/JAStitches
Summary: Qrow interrupts Yang's sparring lesson with her father, and catches Taiyang at a bad time.





	

"Uppercut!"

_POW!_

"Left!"

_BANG!_

"Right!"

_BANG!_

"Go for the gut!"

_POW!_

"Right!"

_BANG!_

"Left!"

_BANG!_

"Headshot!"

_BOOM!_

The training dummy fell to the floor at their feet with a satisfying _thud_ , the blank-faced, burlap head completely blown apart to spill the sawdust inside. The splits across the gut and chest were still smoking faintly from their charred edges, sawdust also leaking from them. The thirteen-year-old flexed her wrists and fingers, and exhaled victoriously as her gauntlets clicked down into inactivation.

"That was beautiful!" her trainer praised, his proud smile softening into something closer to a reminiscing one as he patted her shoulder. "I always knew you'd be great."

"Don't get all sappy on me, Dad," she snarked playfully, pulling the bright orange tie out of her hair and shaking out her blonde mane.

"I mean it. I still remember when you'd try to fight your teddy bear. You'd punch it over and over and just be giggling and going 'bang bang.' Never understood where you got 'bang bang' from. I thought your uncle taught you that, until you came to me with your weapon design. Your uncle would call that 'early reference to your Semblance,' I think."

"I don't remember. I just always thought it was cool."

"Still. I always knew you were gonna be a one-girl wrecking team. Pretty soon you'll be knocking out real opponents with no trouble. Dunno if I'll be able to keep up with you, then."

"I'll go easy on you." Yang stretched her arms a bit, looking her father over. "What's up with you, anyway? You never get like this unless you've been thinking."

"Well, I have. I've been thinking a bit, and talking with your uncle and some of the other teachers. Been getting the inside scoop on how you've been doing here."

"Don't say that. 'The inside scoop?'"

"Okay, fine, I won't say it like that. But all of them say you're doing beautifully, and well, I guess it just got me thinking." Taiyang ran a hand back through his hair. "Mostly about when your uncle and I were in school."

"Were you and Uncle Qrow partners on your team?"

"Well, that's the secret to being a great team; everyone can work well with any member of their team. Team attacks and all that."

"... was my mother your partner?"

That stopped Taiyang in his tracks, and he looked down, away from Yang. "... no. Nope, I was Qrow's partner, but... See, the Branwens... well, one of them, anyway... they tried to cheat during the initiation. Not enough to influence the rest of the team, but enough to ensure that they would be partners. That didn't work, since Qrow found me before he found his sister. I don't know who it was, but your uncle's very quick to point fingers at his sister. You can see why I'm not jumping to any conclusions there."

"Because Ruby does the exact same thing?"

"I didn't name names." He glanced back up. "... what's with all the questions about your mother lately? You been thinking about her again?"

"... yeah, kinda."

"... I don't blame you." He picked up the sparring dummy, shouldering its sad remains for a moment before tossing it across the room to a growing pile of its broken and disfigured comrades. He crossed back to Yang, patting her shoulder. "Alright, proud dad moment over. Back to teacher mode. You've got the basics of using your weapon to enhance physical blows, mastery of that comes with practice. Now let's get to the cool stuff."

"Do you mean homework." Yang had tried to sound snarky, but it didn't come through clearly over the deafening sound of annoyance that the subject was being skirted around yet again.

"For once, I don't mean homework."

"Nice job, firecracker."

Both blonds looked up at the sound of the new voice, and Yang's face lit up for a brief moment when she spied the new figure. Qrow took a few steps into the sparring area, ruffling Yang's hair slightly. "We gotta start making those things more realistic. You're gonna start thinking you can blow off heads with one punch if you keep this up."

"Thanks, Uncle Qrow."

"Back already?" Taiyang asked, heading toward the line of pristine dummies, just waiting for their turn at slaughter, to fetch a fresh victim. "Shouldn't you be home resting up?"

"I was home, you weren't. I came up to see how training was going."

"Training's going great! I mean... well..." Taiyang gestured to the pile of destroyed dummies. "That's all just from today."

"You're only giving her dummies? No real sparring practice?"

"Well..." The blond man looked rather sheepish, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Yeah, Dad, we don't really spar anymore," Yang chimed in. "Why is that?"

"... I told you I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up with you if you kept improving at your current rate: I wouldn't be the level of challenging that you need to keep that up."

"He's getting old, is what he means," Qrow teased. "Happens when you're raising two kids on your own, giving up the life of a Huntsman, and settling completely into the lull of academia."

"Gee, if only I knew someone related who could've been helping." The hardness of his voice was striking. Clearly, though the dark-haired man's tone had been nothing but playful, Qrow had touched a nerve. And Yang knew exactly why: her father hadn't completely given up the life of a Huntsman, but while she and Ruby were young, he had been unable to take missions as frequently as it often seemed he wanted to. He'd had no choice but to focus all of the energy he had left after being a father into being a teacher at Signal.

Well-aware of the nerve-touching, Qrow raised his hands in a yielding gesture and visibly took a step back from his teammate. "Alright, you got me there. You've done a good job with no help. And face it, Tai, I'm no help."

Taiyang sighed tiredly, not looking at Qrow as he spoke. "Qrow. Please. Don't start. Not in front of my daughter. Please."

"Who's starting? You're the one starting."

"Uncle Qrow--"

"I can't do this today, Qrow. We're in the middle of a lesson. Yang's got some ranged work to do."

Sick of being talked over and discussed as if she weren't right there, Yang crossed her arms in a huff, looking between her father and uncle. "... where's Ruby?"

"Huh?"

"What?"

Both men looked at her, then looked at each other. Taiyang's expression suggested that he honestly hadn't even noticed that Ruby wasn't there, and Qrow's seemed like he genuinely hadn't heard her. In spite of her father's apparent panic, Yang repeated herself. "I said 'where's Ruby?'"

"My office, with your dog. Found her alone in your dad's classroom. She's working on her weapon design," Qrow answered instantly, confirming that he just hadn't heard her properly the first time. "She decided what she wants to go with, she's just working on the features now. May even be ready to start forging as early as next month."

"... you didn't tell her about Summer's, did you?" Taiyang interjected almost instantly. "Qrow, I don't want her to think she needs to be exactly like her mom, we avoided that with Yang--"

"Calm down, Tai. She's not trying to copy Summer's weapon. Unless you've shown her, I don't think she's ever even seen it."

"... Good. Good, that's good." Taiyang exhaled slowly and ran his hands through his hair, blowing air tensely through pursed lips. "She doesn't need to be--"

"She's designing a scythe."

That shut Taiyang right up, and his eyes went wide. "... She's what?! Qrow, how could you--"

"She came in with some sketches and a description of what she wanted, and wanted to look at mine for reference. She said she wanted to learn to use a scythe. I told her if she wanted to learn and make her own, then I'd help her. Just like you're doing for Yang."

Taiyang clenched his fists, gritting his teeth, but said nothing. He merely retrieved a new sparring dummy and began setting it up in the center of the floor.

"... what, are you waiting for me to apologize? Because I'm not gonna apologize for teaching Ruby valuable skills." He crossed his arms. "And what're you saying, you don't think she can handle a scythe? Or you just don't want me to teach her?"

"Watch it, Uncle Qrow," Yang supplied, throwing on a playful smile but sounding not unlike she was trying to break the tension. When it didn't work, she switched tactics. "... Dad, I'm gonna grab a drink."

Instead of answering Qrow, Taiyang addressed his daughter. "Don't want you getting dehydrated, better juice up."

"You want something?"

"Nope. I'm not the one working out."

Yang sighed, glancing over her shoulder at her uncle. Qrow took the cue, following her toward the door. They made their way back toward Taiyang's classroom and office, and Yang retied her hair distractedly. "... did you have to rile him up?"

"I wasn't trying to rile him up."

"Sure looked like it."

"Well, I wasn't." He fluffed the back of his hair. "He's busy training you, why is it such a big deal if I train Ruby? She'd be learning from the best."

"He just worries, Uncle Qrow. They've got that whole saying about scythes, don't they? Like, that people who use them always bring death with them or something?"

Qrow's face went blank. Masklike. "They only say that because bandit tribes used to favor scythes and axes as weapons. Nowadays, you see more of 'em with swords and daggers, and crossbows, since the people fighting them started to use ranged weapons. Some real traditional ones might use sickles, but you've still gotta be up close with 'em for those to do any damage."

"... I didn't know that."

"Trust me, Yang, Your dad and I've seen more than our share of bandits. Probably seen yours and Ruby's share too. Least I hope so." He opened the door to Taiyang's classroom, holding it open for her and following her across the room to his office at the front of it. "... not all scythe-wielders nowadays bring misfortune, kiddo. At least not indiscriminately."

"You just bring misfortune to Grimm, right?" Yang laughed, opening up the office door and wandering inside.

Qrow didn't immediately follow, withdrawing his weathered flask from his pocket and taking a long drink before answering his niece. "... yeah. Grimm."

Yang emerged with her water and a light yellow towel over her shoulder, taking an equally-long drink out of the bottle before speaking. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Fine."

"... is it because Dad's mad about Ruby's weapon?"

"... He and I clearly have different opinions about it. The design she showed me might even keep her out of close combat if she wants it that way; she's got a sniper rifle function sketched in there. Be a better asset, anyway. Can't even tell you how many times I've wished I had a sniper watching my back. Recoil on that monster's gonna be murder, though, hope she can handle it."

"... like I said. He just worries. You know that."

He ran a hand back through his hair, giving a heavy sigh. "... C'mon, firecracker, let's get back to your dad, you got work to do."

The walk back to the sparring area was silent and tense, uncle and niece not even looking at each other. When the door opened, Taiyang had rigged up a few extra dummies in the middle of the floor. He was working on the seventh one when he looked up to see the pair come in. "You didn't have to walk her back, Qrow. She's a big girl."

"Wanted to. It's polite."

"Well, you can go now. Check on Ruby and Zwei."

"You're seriously mad? I'm not wrong here. Why is it such a big deal to you?"

"Because your fighting style is dangerous, Qrow. Way more likely to get you hurt. You rely too heavily on your weapon and not enough on your own muscle. I don't want Ruby fighting like that. What if she gets disarmed?"

"Well, that's not your call to make. It's hers. And she made it. You can't control everything, Tai, people need to be independent. Yang and Ruby included. You're letting them train to be Huntresses, you can't shelter them forever. They're gonna run into some danger--"

"Oh, here we go." Taiyang stood up, finally snapping and seeming to forget that Yang was present to see him lose his temper. "Are we really doing this again? Let me save you the time. 'You're over-protective! You don't have to control everything!' I told you, I'm not doing this today."

"I wouldn't have to remind you if you pulled your head out of the sand and listened to me the first time."

"Spare me, Branwen. I know what's best for my girls, not you."

That seemed to strike a sour chord with Qrow, who clenched his fists and took a step toward the blond. "Listen--"

"And here comes the tantrum. I swear, you're just like your--" Taiyang stopped short, his own fists clenched and his jaw set, before he could finish his sentence. Rather than do so, however, he knelt back down to tighten the pin in the stand of the final sparring dummy.

Qrow's eyes glinted dangerously, and his voice was flat when he spoke again. "Go on, Xiao Long, say it."

"Sister," Taiyang snapped without hesitation. "You're just like your sister."

Qrow glanced sideways at his niece, who'd started to twist her towel nervously in her hands, then stepped back and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. As he turned his back on the training floor, the pin between Taiyang's fingers broke with a loud crack, causing the dummy to topple over onto him, the two halves of the stand pinching the blond's fingers in the process.

He pushed the sawdust-filled body off and stood up, turning around to see only Yang standing there with her towel, with Qrow nowhere to be found. His face instantly fell, and he sighed in something like defeat. "... I'm sorry you had to see that."

"... let's just get back to training. Ranged work, right?"


End file.
